Facebook Tools Are Used to Screen Out Older Job Seekers, Lawsuit Claims • Hacker News Board

Re: Facebook Tools Are Used to Screen Out Older Job Seekers, Lawsuit Claims

#231

Post by mattbrewsbytes » Tue, May 29, 2018, 4:54 PM UTC

ryanmonroe wrote: post #196

agrippanux wrote: post #156

Age discrimination being rampant in our industry is a fantastic opportunity for an astute hiring manager. I go out of my way to hire older devs that are eschewed by typical Bay Area startups. I can get a seasoned pro with a solid background in C - and other more trendy languages - for about the same price of a 3-years-working-experience "senior dev" who likely was battlefield commissioned into the role at their last…

> I go out of my way to hire older devs that are eschewed by typical Bay Area startups Going "out of [your] way" to hire older devs sounds like age discrimination. AFAIK, age discrimination in this direction isn't illegal in America, but it seems odd that you would respond to an article decrying age-discrimination by proudly declaring that you discriminate too, in the opposite direction. Maybe you just meant that you…

It sounds more like experience discrimination.

Re: Facebook Tools Are Used to Screen Out Older Job Seekers, Lawsuit Claims

#232

Post by notacoward » Tue, May 29, 2018, 4:55 PM UTC

s73v3r_ wrote: post #226

notacoward wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> older candidates would not have even been allowed to know about the job To be more precise, they would not have seen the job on Facebook . That's not the same as not being allowed to know about the job, and the difference matters. The question is not whether they were included by a particular venue, medium, or method. If it were, every engagement with a headhunter would be discriminating against anyone not part of…

"That's not the same as not being allowed to know about the job, and the difference matters" Unless they're also advertising in other places where those people might see the posting, no, the difference does not matter. Saying, "Well, you should have looked for it," when putting the posting in the cellar of the department with the lights gone and the stairs gone in the bottom of a locked file cabinet stuck in a disuse…

Did you post that before you read the "equal effort" part two sentences later? It sure looks like it, because your false analogy runs directly contrary to what I said.

Re: Facebook Tools Are Used to Screen Out Older Job Seekers, Lawsuit Claims

#233

Post by logfromblammo » Tue, May 29, 2018, 4:56 PM UTC

gowld wrote: post #221

galieos_ghost wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Boggles my mind that companies do this. I'm just out of college and am amazed by the depth of knowledge older programmers have. A lot of them can find bugs on an almost instinctive level . I think it might come down to founders being insecure around older engineers who probably won't be afraid to call them out on dumb decisions and won't be as likely to drink the hpye kool-aid because they've seen it all before. Seem…

Why would a founder want to hire someone who doesn't believe in their business?

Because the majority of startups are bullshit businesses that are destined to fail, and only those who can recognize the intrinsic problems with them could ever help the founders pivot to something sane and profitable before the runway is gone.

Re: Facebook Tools Are Used to Screen Out Older Job Seekers, Lawsuit Claims

#234

Post by maxxxxx » Tue, May 29, 2018, 4:56 PM UTC

logfromblammo wrote: post #195

afpx wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

True. But, I was desperate.

Never lower your rate. If you want to make yourself cheaper for the company, offer to work fewer hours, or on a fixed-term contract rather than permanent employment. For those options, you should also actually be raising your hourly rate, because you'll then have to cover more of your own costs, like taxes and insurance. And don't let anyone squeeze you to make your actual rate lower. I once went to an interview wher…

When I was a contractor the only customers who changed their mind when I put in a lowball offer were people who like to take advantage of other people, definitely not the ones you want to work with. Most other people will reject you not because of your price but because of other factors and price is just an excuse.

Re: Facebook Tools Are Used to Screen Out Older Job Seekers, Lawsuit Claims

#235

Post by s73v3r_ » Tue, May 29, 2018, 4:58 PM UTC

gowld wrote: post #221

galieos_ghost wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Boggles my mind that companies do this. I'm just out of college and am amazed by the depth of knowledge older programmers have. A lot of them can find bugs on an almost instinctive level . I think it might come down to founders being insecure around older engineers who probably won't be afraid to call them out on dumb decisions and won't be as likely to drink the hpye kool-aid because they've seen it all before. Seem…

Why would a founder want to hire someone who doesn't believe in their business?

I think the attitude that calling someone out on their bullshit is, "not believing in their business," is a huge part of the problem.

Re: Facebook Tools Are Used to Screen Out Older Job Seekers, Lawsuit Claims

#236

Post by lightedman » Tue, May 29, 2018, 4:59 PM UTC

bluGill wrote: post #76

wmeredith wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What if they were targeting older workers as part of a diversity program?

That is discrimination against younger workers. Diversity programs are a double edged sword, there are groups that are under represented. However every time you target them you lose the larger group that you didn't target, and that group has great people.

"That is discrimination against younger workers."

Such thing does not exist in Federal law. Only after the age of 40 do age discrimination protections kick in. You can absolutely be too young to work an industry (e.g. a place that has the primary service of alcohol or other age-regulated vice) that you won't find much in the way of winning discrimination cases based on being too young.

Re: Facebook Tools Are Used to Screen Out Older Job Seekers, Lawsuit Claims

#237

Post by scarface74 » Tue, May 29, 2018, 4:59 PM UTC

xamuel wrote: post #165

ams6110 wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If the group has settled on using React, the last thing they want is someone constantly trying to convert them to Angular. Older developers have seen enough technology fads come and go that they are much less likely to do this than a young, excitable one.

I'm not far from being an older dev, and I've been struggling more and more with cynicism in myself. Everything you said is 100% true, but I have to force myself to avoid phrases like "technology fad" or "young, excitable devs" when I'm mentoring younger devs. Because even though those things are true, verbalizing them would demoralize the team.

I don't argue against the latest fads. I hate the idea of Node/Electron/ various JS based cross platform mobile frameworks with a passion, but I do look to see what is paying the most and has the most openings. I'll jump on whatever fad that the market wants.

Re: Facebook Tools Are Used to Screen Out Older Job Seekers, Lawsuit Claims

#238

Post by s73v3r_ » Tue, May 29, 2018, 5:02 PM UTC

oculusthrift wrote: post #184

devils advocate reasons to avoid older tech job seekers: 1. they are less pliable. they have experience st other companies and typically want to keep doing stuff the way they did at their previous company. it’s a lot more work to make someone unlearn bad habits than teach them good ones 2. If you have 20+ years of experience you should really be at the management or architect level. if you’re still a typical engineer…

The devil has plenty of advocates already.

"2. If you have 20+ years of experience you should really be at the management or architect level. if you’re still a typical engineer (even senior) it may indicate a defect."

This is absolute crap; not wanting to be in management because you don't have the skillset for it is not a defect. This idea needs to die a painful death.

Re: Facebook Tools Are Used to Screen Out Older Job Seekers, Lawsuit Claims

#239

Post by kartan » Tue, May 29, 2018, 5:03 PM UTC

cm2012 wrote: post #208

This is really dumb if you understand how Facebook's advertising algorithm works. It's going to optimize job ads towards people who click job ads. Young people are more likely to be looking for jobs than older people, and thus click job ads more. [1] So Facebook's ad algorithm's are going to target younger people because it's more cost effective, because they want to see these type of ads more by far. By the data, ol…

> So Facebook's ad algorithm's are going to target younger people because it's more cost effective

Because there is a technical explanation doesn't means that it is not discrimination. Actually discrimination had a lot to do about getting an individual differently because he/she is part of a group. We didn't baked a law, the machine did. It is not a good defense in a trial, or at least I hope it is not.

A good read on this topic http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2017/05/qa-should-artificial-...

Re: Facebook Tools Are Used to Screen Out Older Job Seekers, Lawsuit Claims

#240

Post by pc86 » Tue, May 29, 2018, 5:03 PM UTC

dvtrn wrote: post #102

DavidWoof wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm a programmer in my late 50s. While age discrimination is real, and I certainly have my share of "not a culture fit" and "overqualified" rejections over the past 10 years, if you're getting rejected over 90% of the time then I strongly suspect the problem isn't age discrimination. It's much more likely that your skills are out of date or you've gained some bad interviewing habits that you should examine. If people…

"Overqualified" has got to be the softest insult you can throw at a job seeker. It ostensibly says "we aren't secure in ourselves as employers to challenge our workers to produce great work, nor do we value original thought, so we'd rather hire drones that don't rattle the cage".

When it reality what it actually means is "your experience suggests you are worth more than what we're paying, and we'd rather not spend the time onboarding you just to have you leave in 6 months when you a job more commensurate with your experience and skills."

I've been on the employer side of taking a chance on overqualified folks and it's a waste of a lot of time and a lot of money.